Kudos. I'm late to this article, but I agree with you 100%. I argue about this with my friends all the time. My favorite kind of pirate is the kind that sees himself as some kind of Robin Hood, sticking it to the man or something. Which is the silliest thing I've ever heard. [note - I realized that I started to refer to pirates as "you" in this article. If you aren't a pirate, no hard feelings.]
Nobody seams to have anything to say about this: if you pirate a game, you are stealing it. The word I like to use is "shoplifting". If you pirate a game, you are telling the entire production team that their work is not worth money.
(Of course there are fringe issues that pirates like to bring up. I like to lump those under the "medicinal marijuana" category - stoners don't care about "medicine," and pirates don't care about "honest backups". Medicinal marijuana is a legit (and separate) issue for people who legitimately need it (a completely separate debate), but stoners just want to get stoned, and pirates just want to play games for free.)
This whole thing is 100%, hands down, unequivocally the pirates' fault. No matter how you slice it, they started it with the first copied floppy. Publishers wouldn't have started using these terrible draconian DRMs if you guys hadn't stolen so much of their work before. You don't have to deal with it, because you're thieves and you get around it by stealing it once it's hacked, but I have to deal with it, and so do all the other gamers with the strange and foreign idea that people deserve to get PAID for their work.
I don't care about your little "but I wouldn't have BOUGHT the game anyway" or "we're not actually stealing sales from them", quips, etc. Pirates started this, and it's honest gamers who are paying for it. Picture this. You are in a market, and you see some bread. You're not sure if you need it, but you want it. So you take it while the baker's back is turned. You are a thief, and one can hardly blame the baker for putting up a fence next time or hiring a guard. Now, let's say that this is more similar to the games industry - the baker has the recipe for the bread, and can churn about infinite loaves. Then is so bad? Well, yes. Let's say he also spent millions of dollars and man-hours developing the recipe for that bread, and that each sale helps him to get enough money to design more bread later. By enjoying the bread without paying for it, you are still screwing him over. And also, you are still a god-damned thief, which is STILL something you CANNOT escape from. Oh! But what if he's Prince John? He (the publisher) is so rich!...doesn't that mean that it's ok? See, I can't even finish TYPING that without you still being a thief. You're not stealing from the rich and giving to the poor - you're stealing from the rich and giving to your own greedy ass, and screwing over your more honest peers.
As an honest man, I'm frustrated too with the DRM thing, but I deal with it 1 of 2 ways - I either just buy the game anyway and take it in stride, or boycott the game. For this reason, I do not own Bioshock 2 or Assassin's Creed 2. If you want to REALLY "stick it to the man", boycott it. What? Sacrifice? Yeah, that's how protests WORK. Punk-ass pirates.
and hopefully some game developers will read them too. (Please dont bring up the shareholder debate again)
